The Blood Of The Beast

10: Overreacted

(28/07/16 - 04/08/16)

"The gods must learn their lesson/ The future is inevitable

Where monster and man become the same/ And real love is forgotten" Artemis stopped reading.

"That's it? That's all it says?" Jason yelled.

"Calm down man," I roll my eyes.

"How can I? I have a prophecy Alex! One that is supposed to lead to yours! The most important one of all!"

"Boys, calm down. Go home. Rest. My hunters and I are on it. Girls are smarter than boys so we are bound to figure this out." Artemis tried soothing the hysteria.

"Wow, thanks Artemis, that's so nice of you." Jason rolls his eyes.

"Jason she's righ-"

"Of course girls are smarter than boys. I mean, Albert Einstein was a female."

"Jason-"

"And a woman discovered gravity."

"Ja-"

"And also, radium was discovered my Marie Curie, not her husband."

"Actually that's tru-"

"And the majority of the smartest, strangest, and best people in the world are female."

"Stop Jaso-"

"Not to mention-"

"Jason! Shut up!" I yelled. He stopped and stared at me as grew eight other heads. Like the hydra that tried to attack my parents before the Drakkon.

Brain, stop being creepy right now. We have plenty if time for that later.

I took a deep breath, as if I was trying to make Jason recieve my 'calmness' as his own. Or relatively as much calmness and sanity you can have after meeting two gods and discovering what happened to your parents and tones of other things in the same day.

"Ignore the fact that Artemis said girls are smarter then boys and she will actually make sense. You know the saying "Two heads are better than one"? Well in this case, a goddess and her creepy cult of teenage girls-"

"Dragonslayer... I'm warning you..."

"-is actually better than us two trying to understand a riddle from centuries ago. Besides. I'm hungry. I need chow to think."

Jason rolled his eyes. "Fine. Let's go home. We can talk at the ice cream shop tomorrow, anyways."

Without another word he took one last look at the pile of rocks, turned around, and left the forest clearing.

I sighed and looked at Artemis. "I'm sorry. It's just that Jason doesn't like it when people think he isn't good enough. His family already gives him enough of that crap."

We sat around the dining room table at the Todd house. His older sisters kicking us underneath the table. Completely used to it because that's how girls treated boys in second grade, we just figured that they still did that in fourth.

His older brothers, who we called the Titan Twins, whispering at each other.

Mrs. Todd was passing around the lamb chops and Mr. Todd reading his newspaper, as usual, at the head of the table.

It was the third time I stayed over for dinner at the Todd's house, so I was accustomed to the routine.

I would never expect the storm that was coming.

I blinked and pushed away the bad memory, and willed myself to listen to what the goddess was saying.

"-is understandable. That's how most demigods are treated by their human families. I will speak to you when I find something out."

I nodded. "What If we do? How do we contact you?"

She hesitated but reached in her back pocket. "It's the whistle I use to call one of my sacred deer, if you find something out, blow in it and the deer will come. Not soon you will follow behind."

She handed me the small silver whistle. It was carved to represent an antler, with a small moon carved in the middle. Illegible words were carved around it. Άρτεμις των δασικών , Θεά των Ζώων.

I frowned at it. "What's it say?"

She smiles, the first truly happy look on her face. Not one of her bitter, cunning smirks, but a true, genuine sign of elation. Somehow, it seemed foreign on her face.

"Something for me to know, and for you to soon find out."

I sighed an slid it into my pocket, where the Oracle's paper had been.

With that she nodded her head and was overcome by mist and darkness.

Alone, I did what I had truly wanted to do as soon as Artmis explained it to me.

I walked to the pile and touched the bottom middle rock, earth. Underneath my feet came a small tremor. Evil. That's what she said I represented.

I crouched down and examined the bottom rock. There was a rough carving of a sword clashing with a shield. The sword that had disappeared along with my armor when I left Miss Mary's house.

I shook my head, clearing away my thoughts. There was no way to know this. The carving was plain and simple, no details whatsoever. It could have been any other sword.

I stood up and dusted off my shorts. Jason's waiting for you, besides you should go before a bear finds you and kills you for food.

Yeah right, who was I kidding. Jason was probably half way back to Sandy Beaches, which fortunantly, was only a couple miles away from here.

Giving one last look at the formation, I walked out of the clearing.

-_-_-_-

Working at Miss Mary's ice cream shop was always slow.

We were surrounded by popular stores such as Coldstone and Carvel so not a lot of people would go in.

But today was something different, not including the fact that Jason was pissed at me for not siding with him last night against Artemis.

A large group of teenage girls walked right into the shop. Jason, being Jason, did his best to try and flirt with all of them.

All he received in response was glared and looks of disgust.

"Why aren't they drooling on my feet, man! This always works!" He shouted in exasperation after all the girls sat, refusing to order anything claiming they were waiting for someone.

"So we're back to speaking terms now, are we?" I smirked.

He rolled his eyes. "Shut up."

"You know you overreacted."

He glared at me. I replied with a laugh.

All of a sudden, all the girls went quiet and Artemis and an incredibally buff man walked in.

"Alex, my friend. I believe we are ready to start a prophecy. Let's try not kill ourselves."